The present invention relates to an automatic-transfer-transaction processing apparatus which may be installed in a bank and which may be easily operated by anyone to transfer money to the account of any person.
Recently, apparatuses for automatically processing transfer transactions have been developed to meet the demand that bank transactions be done automatically. An apparatus of this type exchanges data with a host computer, when operated, to transfer a specified amount to be transferred to the account of any person. The user must input various pieces of data, e.g., the amount he wishes to transfer, the transferee's acount number, etc. Whenever he wants to withdraw money and transfer it, he needs to input the number of his account, too. Unless he is good at operating keys, he must spend a long time entering the necessary items of data, or he may input wrong data.
The user may need to transfer money to the same person's account many times. To save time, he can use a transfer card on which the data to be input to the apparatus is recorded. The card is made of paper and has a magnetic strip. The information is magnetically recorded on the strip and is also printed on the card so that the user may read it. When the user inserts the transfer card in the apparatus, the data is read from it. In accordance with the information thus read out, a transfer is processed. Since the card is inexpensive and data may easily be printed on it, it is made of paper. However, it may deteriorate with long use, and the magnetic strip may become less reliable. If this is the case, the card can no longer be used. Hence, it is necessary to limit the valid period of the card or the number of times the card may be used. But there is no way to prevent the user from using the card whose valid period has expired or which has been used over a prescribed number of times.